
Article 1009 of bionet.plants:
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From: vbell@mail.sas.upenn.edu (Vance Bell)
Newsgroups: bionet.plants
Subject: The Use of Plants to Treat Wastewater
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Date: 16 Mar 93 20:02:59 GMT
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I am greatly interested in the possiblity of using plants, and/or entire
ecosystems to treat wastewaste.  I understand that work on this has been
attempted in Northern California; Sugarbush, Vermont; Louisiana; Cape May,
Massachussetts, and possibly other places.

I would greatly appreciate any references on this type of research.

The main source I presently have is an article on the New Alchemy
Institute, in Massachussetts, and a man named John Todd who has apparently
founded a company to promote the "technology."

Citations of reference books on plant abilities to sequester metals, or
treat water would also be helpful.

Thank You.

Vance Bell: vbell@mail.sas.upenn.edu


Article 1012 of bionet.plants:
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From: ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk (Tony Travis)
Newsgroups: bionet.plants
Subject: Re: The Use of Plants to Treat Wastewater
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Date: 17 Mar 93 13:14:08 GMT
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Vance Bell (vbell@edu.upenn.sas.mail) wrote:
: I am greatly interested in the possiblity of using plants, and/or entire
: ecosystems to treat wastewaste.  I understand that work on this has been
: attempted in Northern California; Sugarbush, Vermont; Louisiana; Cape May,
: Massachussetts, and possibly other places.

I don't have any references, Vance :-(

.... but a lot of work has been done on the water hiacynth (Eichhornia)
which apparently thrives when growing on all sorts of waste/polluted
water, and improves the quality of the water in the process.

I think there was a project to use the plant material produced, but I'm
uncertain what for because accumulation of toxic substances would make
it useless for feeding animals.

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis,                       |  JANET: <ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri>
Rowett Research Institute,            |  other: <ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk>
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn,            |  phone: +44 (0)224 712751
Aberdeen, AB2 9SB. UK.                |    fax: +44 (0)224 715349


Article 1013 of bionet.plants:
Newsgroups: bionet.plants
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From: clarke@watson.ibm.com (Ed Clarke)
Subject: Re: The Use of Plants to Treat Wastewater
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In article <1993Mar17.131425.4355@gserv1.dl.ac.uk>, ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk (Tony Travis) writes:
|> Vance Bell (vbell@edu.upenn.sas.mail) wrote:
|> : I am greatly interested in the possiblity of using plants, and/or entire
|> : ecosystems to treat wastewaste.  I understand that work on this has been
|> : attempted in Northern California; Sugarbush, Vermont; Louisiana; Cape May,
|> : Massachussetts, and possibly other places.
|> I don't have any references, Vance :-(
|> .... but a lot of work has been done on the water hiacynth (Eichhornia)
|> which apparently thrives when growing on all sorts of waste/polluted
|> water, and improves the quality of the water in the process.

Disney-World in Orlando, FL is using plants to process their waste water.
I'm sure they would be glad to give you references ... good public
relations and all that.

Ed Clarke
clarke@watson.ibm.com


Article 1017 of bionet.plants:
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From: VJIMENEZ@UCRVM2.bitnet ("Victor M. Jimenez")
Newsgroups: bionet.plants
Subject: Re: The Use of Plants to Treat Wastewater
Message-ID: <9303172350.AA09136@net.bio.net>
Date: 17 Mar 93 23:50:40 GMT
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Vance:

    I have no references, but I've heard that at the Instituto Tecnologico de
Costa Rica there is some people working in the matter.  Using the
water hyacint (don't really know how to write it, sorry).  You can try to
contact Juan Carlos Carvajal (jccarvaj@ucrvm2.bitnet) who is the manager at
that institute, and ask him to put in contact with the people who is working
in that project.

Good luck,

Victor

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
VICTOR M. JIMENEZ              VJIMENEZ@UCRVM2.BITNET
CIGRAS                         TEL. (506)-24-8554
UNIVERSIDAD DE COSTA RICA      FAX. (506)-53-3762
SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Article 1019 of bionet.plants:
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From: cunninsd@esvax.dnet.dupont.com
Newsgroups: bionet.plants
Subject: plant-based, wastewater treatment systems
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Date: 18 Mar 93 15:14:57 GMT
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Wastewater treatment with plants is a well established discipline,
but with recent advances in genetic engineering and the tightening
of certain regulations (including POTW discharge limits, storm
drain run off, etc.) it is being revisted by new techniques. 

Some random thoughts:

1.  A good review of the engineering component might be found in 
chapter 13 "Land Treatment" of WASTEWATER ENGINEERING: 
TREATMENT, DISPOSAL AND REUSE.  Revised by George Tchobanoglous.  
Published by McGraw-Hill Book Company.  Plants/crops have been 
used as a land treatment system since the 1880's.  

2.  Specific literature searches on the subject /or following people 
will also give quite a list of excellent references:

 B. C. Wolverton-  reed beds, aquatic plants, constructed wetlands
he is now with Wolverton Environmental (601) 799-3807

Reinhold Kickuth  (Germany)- aquatic plant filter beds -lots of good 
papers & research.

R.F. Stott - (try Letters in Applied Microbiology, 1991 12, 99-105 
"Sewage treatment with plants")

USEPA (1988) document- Design Manual- Constructed Wetlands and 
Aquatic Plant Systems for Municipal Wastewater Treatment, EPA 
625/11-88/022

3.  There are many companies that promote, sell, or install plant-
based, wastewater treatment systems.  Some are listed below, but there are many
more:

The Lemna Corp- St. Paul Minn. (612) 688-8813
BBI-Charles Town W.V (304) 725-6880
EEA -Marion, Mass. (508) 748-3224
Phragmitech inc- Cheneville, Quebec (819) 428-3640
Severn Trent (Coventry, CV3 6PR- IN UK) -M.B. Green  
   they are installing 100's of reed bed systems and seem to have   
   done a good job on the engineering parameter.
Environmental Engineering Consultants, Norwich, Vt 05055

4.  As an overall comment- the design, supporting matrix (soil, etc),
plant species and rates of degradation can all be improved by the R & 
D community. Degradation of toxins by the plants, and plant-
associated microbes is a relatively "hot" topic currently under
examination in a dozen labs. There is some excellent work being done
in this area at Federal, State and University labs. 

5. A couple of conferences to note with plant & Xenobiotic 
degradation components are:  

Meeting of the Air and Waste Management Assoc Denver June 13-18
Congress on Cell and Tissue Culture, San Diego June 5-9
ACS Meeting- Chicago Aug 22-27 A symposium on rhizosphere     
      degradation
Water Environment Federation Meeting (Fall)
Soils Science Society of America (Fall) 


The standard disclaimer applies about these not being corporate 
opinions, just mine.  There is quite a lot of information out there on
the flux of chemicals through this systems, plant uptake,
degradative capacity of plants, etc...  There is a lot of room for good
inovative botany/microbiology/hydrology etc. 




